My mother told me that when she was young she had met a Pastor who had blood cancer. He took no medications and just prayed and was healed. Could it be real?
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You should read this.https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Miracle#Explaining_miracles, also this https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Spontaneous_remission And Biggus out. derpdy derp derp derp.
don't you think if faith healers can really heal, how come they don't visit hospitals and heal all the patients?why do isolated healing?
isn't that absurd?prayer has nothing to do with it, never!
Researchers are investigating the potential of immunotherapy to be a powerful, effective and long-lasting solution to kill cancer.
@abhi_Lamsar: He just prayed and was healed. Could it be real?
Of course it is real !
That's why no Pastor, Vicar, Iman, Arch Bishop or Evangelistic Preacher ever died of cancer.
What's that? They did? Cancer kills the same percentage of "God Botherers" as it does non believers?
Gee ..... then I guess that means ...
Mother Teresa believed in the healing power of Jesus. In fact, after she had a heart attack Jesus fitted her with a pacemaker.
@Algebe Re: Jesus
WHAAAAT???? And all this time I've been led to believe Jesus was just a simple carpenter. Well, there goes the neighborhood! My whole belief system has just been shattered! Gee, thanks.
Lol, how about this? There are many religious charlatans who claim that their diseases went away with prayer. If that were true, then why do we need doctors? We can just pray and get rid of all hospitals. It's total bogus. What about all the helpless children who pray and get beat up/raped for an example? Harsh example I know, but put things into perspective. Sometimes things happen and we don't have an explanation for them. That doesn't mean you are correct or jusitified in assuming it was "supernatural"
an atheist once said " you either have a god who send child rapist to rape,or you have a god who simply watches and says 'when you're done I'm gonna punish you' . if i could stop a person from raping a child, i would. that's the different between me and your god"
~Tracie Harris
What evidence have you that the prayer caused the remission? We know remissions occur for no discernible reason, so assuming the prayers caused it sound like a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to me. There have also been double blind clinical studies into the efficacy of prayer, and they all show it to be completely ineffective. When you compare the evidence demonstrated in those peer reviewed studies to a common logical fallacy that no evidence can be demonstrated to support this is a no brainer really. These kind of anecdotal claims abound of course, but are pretty meaningless.
If you investigate the story you will probably find that it was embellished at every level; from the person whom it happened to, to the person who told you. That is the way these things tend to go.
Is this a serious question? It's not even worth the debate or discussion.
Please, don't label yourself an atheist until you've figured yourself.
@Koukla
He's young. Seventeen.
Ya, I know Sushisnake, that's why I suggested he figure himself out before labeling himself an atheist. I felt I might've been too harsh. At least he's questioning and not believing blindly. I have to respect him for that.
@abhi
Is it true faith can cure cancer? No.
Is it true faith can have a placebo effect? Absolutely! Towards the end of WW2, the military field hospital he was stationed in had run out of morphine. American surgeon Harry Beecher was about to operate on a smashed up soldier. He was afraid the soldier would die from cardiovascular without pain relief, so in sheer desperation, he filled a syringe with saline and told the soldier it was morphine. It worked. The soldier calmed down, found the pain bearable during the operation and didn’t go into shock. The soldier's faith in the surgeon's authority was so strong, he behaved as though the saline really was morphine. And it wasn't a one off: Beecher reproduced the result in other patients when morphine was unavailable. The placebo effect is a powerful thing. I sometimes regret my sceptical and scholarly nature because I'll never enjoy the placebo effect: I question everything and research the hell out of it, too.
BUT there is world of difference between the mind blocking a little pain awareness for a short period of time during an operation and the mind physically undoing the mad clusters of insanely dividing cells that refuse to die at their normal time, then spread all over the body, aided and abetted by our own bloody immune system ( the antibodies actually ASSIST the cancer cells: talk about betrayal!) that we call cancer. It doesn't matter how much faith we have in our doctor or priest or god, the mind just can't effect physical change in the body like that. If it could, every amputee would grow a new limb. Everyone with a chronic illness would get well. Everyone with a disability would just have faith and god would remove it.
I don't doubt a pastor told your Mum faith can cure cancer. You hear/read it all the time from all sorts selling all sorts of snake oil. I hope the pastor didn't claim it happened to him personally - I hate, loathe and detest dishonest clergy. Perhaps your Mum misremembered who he claimed was cured by faith. You usually hear cancer cure claims from friends of friends of friends who don't know the miraculously cured one personally, but swear it's true.